Instructions to install a10Core to sdcard, first boot and inital setup.
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Step 1. Go to http://tinycorelinux.net/5.x/armv7/Allwinner-A10 and download mksdcard.tgz
This unpacks into an sdcard directory. Therein I have mkSDcard.sh
I use Tiny Core, so you will need to have util-linux.tcz & dosfstools.tcz loaded.
Use the script specifying your umounted sdcard,, e.g.,
./mkSDcard sdd
The script will prompt you for your board and script bin options.
Caution: your sd card will be wiped clean and reformatted.
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Step 2. Use gparted, fdisk, or sfdisk to add a swap and regular linux partitions to fill up the remaining sd card. Swap is not absolutely necessary, but may be helpful for some users. Be sure to mkswap and format respectively.
Note: That uboot uses the first part of disk so be extremely careful when selecting starting cylinder numbers.
You may wish to use a pendrive for your collection of extensions and backup. If you do so you will need to use a waitusb option. Even some sdcards may need a waitusb option.
To update the boot codes, simply edit the text file uEnv.txt This file should be on the same device partition as uCore. If using an sdcard it should be found on mmcblk0p1
mount /mnt/mmcblk0p1
vi /mnt/mmcblk0p1/uEnv.txt
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Step 3. On your Allwinner device, insert sd card and apply power. Core boots very quickly to the $ prompt.
NOTE: The current image is for the marsboard, if this is not your board then please see http://tinycorelinux.net/5.x/armv7/Allwinner-A10/hardware
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Step 4. You need to setup your tce directory to store downloaded and imported extensions.
At the $ prompt type:
tce-setdrive
You should then select by number the partiton that you setup to hold extensions
from Step 2. If you do not see the expected partition then use updbootcodes to
add waitusb option and reboot to try again. To reboot type:
sudo reboot
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Step 5. Check that you network is up and that you have an IP number, type ifconfig to verify. If you only have wireless access then see the README-wifi.txt
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Step 6. From CLI, the $ prompt, to backup simply type
backup
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Step 7. To shutdown from CLI type
sudo poweroff